A distributed system is a system in which multiple servers may be spread through multiple systems or subsystems. Each system may include multiple application servers. An example is the Netweaver system available from SAP AG of Walldorf, Germany. The application servers receive and process requests from client applications that may be both within and external to the system. In traditional systems, even when an application server is disabled from receiving requests from external applications, the system itself is aware of the application server, and can send requests to the application server. Thus, an application server cannot traditionally be a part of a system without being seen by the system and hit with requests.
Hitting the application server with requests when trying, for example, to perform testing within the system can reduce the effectiveness of the testing and/or increase the testing time. Additionally, errors may be introduced into the testing even when the application server intended for testing should not be available to service external requests. Hitting the application server can also result in data loss within the system if the application server fails to perform the processing. Thus, current systems cannot have an application server that is part of the system context, and yet isolated from servicing requests.
Descriptions of certain details and implementations follow, including a description of the figures, which may depict some or all of the embodiments described below, as well as discussing other potential embodiments or implementations of the inventive concepts presented herein. An overview of embodiments of the invention is provided below, followed by a more detailed description with reference to the drawings.